OT: University of Georgia Violations

The violations just keep piling up across the country, and it appears the University of Georgia has found themselves in the middle of a controversy involving this years starting OLB Jarvis Jones and their prized basketball recruit from the 2011 class Kentavious Caldwell-Pope. Caldwell-Pope is the # 3 ranked SG in the class of 2011.

Current Georgia and former USC linebacker Jarvis Jones could have his eligibility called into question after the Columbus (GA) Parks and Recreation Department uncovered what appeared to an impermissible bank account used to pay for Jones’ air travel when he was a member of a Los Angeles, Nike-sponsored AAU team in 2009.

Not sure how much will come of this, but it's another story where a contact allegedly violating NCAA rules is being investigated by law enforcement officials:

While police are still investigating the actions of P&R director Tony Adams and associate Herman Porter — both are (or, at least, were) involved in a local AAU team by the name of the Georgia Blaze — UGA has notified both the NCAA and the SEC regarding the allegations.

If both player's are ruled ineligible it would be a huge loss to both the football and basketball team

The NCAA is such a mess right now. I'm too young to remember the end of the SWC, but this is the worst year I can remember for NCAA violations. The money is too big. Something is going to have to give. I wonder what it will be...

I don't know, it's been met with resistance so far (Hatch and the BCS, ect.). At least the MLB stuff was against federal laws on the books; Congress would have a much harder sell spending millions investigating an orginazation that doesn't appear full of federal lawbreaking. Most people wouldn't be fond of seeing high profile politicians asking TPeezy2 how many autographs he signed for his sleeve, IMO.

I hope something doesn't give, at least for a while. Even though previous benefits scandals at major programs have always spurred the boilerplate "pay players" debate where one guy screams about the millions of dollars being made and the other guy screams about free education & opportunity, I've noticed the conversation since OSU broke & Tressel went BOOM has been a bit different...

It's almost as if the sports talking heads are implying "oh man, if Saint Tressel had this stuff going on, it has to be unavoidable, and maybe there really should be change..." As an ESPN junkie, I've noticed a lot of the CF Live and CF analysts (including former players) talking about paying players/allowing benefits since the OSU meltdown began. What frustrates me is that, despite this kind of stuff occurring relatively regularly, it took Saint Tressel biting the dust to swing momentum. By pushing the "there should be change" convo as an extension of the OSU coverage, the media has been almost legitimizing or downplaying the seriousness of the allegations...which could easily lead to some rules changes and the NCAA sweeping the entire thing under the rug.

Maybe there should be rules changes; my opinion isn't important. But pushing the "change the rules" debate as part of the OSU story is only likely to help them get off with a slap on the wrist. It was still cheating. Take your medicine and move on, OSU.

To be fair, the push to increase scholarships to full COA (its not really about paying players, regardless of what the talking heads say) was on the agenda well before the worst came out about OSU. The BCS conference heads decided to bring the issue to their respective members as part of the larger BCS annual meetings.

The bottom line is that there are millions of dollars at stake and the players aren't getting what they're actually worth. There's a market, a lot of young people who don't have much money, and people willing to pay. Money is going to change hands, regardless of who gives it up.

Fwiw, I am totally in favor of increasing scholarships to full COA. The COA should be something that each institution needs to specifically break down and present to the NCAA so it's not abused (for example, "it costs 80k/yr to come to our school, and tuition is 35,000...really high cost of living)! I know this is something universities can easily do and often do- for exmple, for my law school loans I could only get GradPlus loans that covered the precise amount of money not covered by scholarships & Stafford loans to meet the exact COA (they wouldn't even round up from $8507 to $8510).

I know money will always change hands regardless of its permissibility. This isn't an argument about whether or not they should be paid, how much they should be paid, or how (though fwiw I think with any stipend should come from the conference rather than the league, thus avoiding Title IX complications).

The point is, despite the past scandals, the tenor of the convo has really changed since Tressel was sent to a temp agency for a typing test (25 wpm...though record setting on a calculator). It's frustrating, as a biased Michigan fan, that this scandal in particular is losing coverage time to debates about whether players should receive benefits/get paid. I just see it setting up nicely for a big NCAA summit and a rule change that allows the NCAA to sweep the OSU cheating under the rug and say "oh my, look at this lesson we all learned! If you have outstanding investigations or charges under review, we'll cut you an easy plea deal and all move on."

would like to have free athletic training at an exclusive gym, not to mention academic tutoring, etc.

So really, if these guys left highschool and went to play in an NFL minor league (like the route hockey and mlb offer), how much money would they earn a year?

I think they ought to be able to sell their stuff. (I am not as sure how to do this fairly.). I think they ought to get adequate compensation for living expenses (room and board).I think they should be compensated for their likenesses appearing in video games. Proceeds from sales of numbered jerseys, etc. should go to the general scholarship fund of the school regardless if number 16 sells way more than 44. (My contention here is number 16 would not be successful if the scholarships for 84 other players were not funded.)

It's not "free". I hate this argument. Saying it's free is like saying they did nothing to earn it or to keep their scholarships. They've put in work since they were teens and continue to do so throughout their careers. Otherwise, I agree with the rest of your argument. They're college kids, they need some pocket change every now and then too.

These rules just don't make sense. I know greed and just wanting cash (and tats) is at the root of most of these problems, but if you take a star athlete from a poor community (hey does this sound like NCAAB and NCAAF?) and put them in the spotlight, on ESPN, etc and they're struggling at school and back home, do you really expect them not to take some cash from some weird old, guy who likes they way they play football?

Bullshit it isn't free. They worked hard to get the chance to go to UM just like the other kids do academically, they just happen to get all their expenses paid for as well. If they gave out academic full rides like they do athletic ones then you might have a point.

If someone wanted to pay money to watch someone solve math problems or read books, you might have a point. No one does. They don't just happen to get their expenses, they bust their asses and put their bodies on the line to get their education paid for.

Stephen Ross says that the university gets plenty of money from top academics. Just tell me what an athlete did more than a student to earn that money? The players that could get in on academics alone might have earned it with the extra skills, but let's be honest that's like 5 players.

Look, I'm not saying they should give scholies to students or they shouldn't to athletes, but their skills and work earned them the ability to attend and play for the University of Michigan, just like a students skills and work do. The stuff on top of that (ie. Scholarship) is FREE because their skills just happen to be in a more profitable field (or just entertaining with regards to non-football or basketball athletes).

I think you really mean the extra stuff is included in the scholarship. It's not free. Free implies it's given to them in exchange for nothing from the athlete. If they stop showing up for practice, they lose all of the extras, so the extras are included and not free. Free is a really misused word.

Playing major college sports is the equivalent of having a 40 hour work week year round. The total goes way up in season and decreases in Spring and Summer, but it averages out to about a 40 hour week. The efforts of those students fund an athletic department with a $100 million budget. Assuming the department paid for full Cost of Attendance (about $2000/year more than is currently included in the scholarship) and that every athlete is an out of state student, the scholarships are worth about 16% of revenue. The new proposed CBA for the NFL has the players getting 48% of revenue. That disparity creates a real gap that people are going to exploit.

The athlete did a lot more to earn his/her share of that $100 million while the average student brings in the same amount of money that he/she pays in tuition minus any subsidy the university provides for tuition from external funding.

Mr Ross is probably referring to total research spending at the University, which is about 10 times larger than athletic spending, but the typical undergrad isn't bringing that money in.

Travel to and from campus. I know that they get "paid" a ton, but still, If we have a recruit from say, florida (Denard?) he has to pay his own flight to and from campus for every time he wants to go home. Someone from the Detroit area (Devin Gardner) on the other hand can go see his family any time he wants, it's a 45 minute car ride.

I know DB mentioned he wants travel looked into for all scholarship athletes, so if an athlete wanted to come to Michigan, but also wanted to go home every Thanksgiving (obviously the football team is busy that weekend) he/she wouldn't have to worry about being able to afford the travel

You may be accurately reflecting the consensus of the OSU crowd. However, a moderate stipend to cover basic costs of living is a different issue that what went on in Columbus. Such a stipend would not have stopped Pryor from gettting free tats and rotating free loaner cars. And the stipend would not have stopped Tressell from covering up his prize player's actions.

Their basketball team was already decimated by a few early entries, but losing a good football player will really hurt their chances of winning a wide-open SEC East. This is definitely worse than accidentally texting a recruit's father.

The real question here is how much will this expand? Kind of reminds me of the whole Ohio State situation. As soon as law enforcement officials were involved they "self reported" it. How long has this been going on, and how many players are there in the NCAA currently whom received benefits from this firm at one point?

Will the law enforcement officials dig up more dirt, or will someone come forward with more in depth information?

I don't know if anyone thinks Georgia got anything out of this. The football player was committed to USC after he supposedly got the money. This sounds more like an Ed Martin deal than something designed to help Georgia specifically.

HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM VERRRRRRYYYYYYYYYYY INTERESTING .. Shannon Scott -- the # 53 ranked player in the Country, and number 6 ranked SG -- who was on the same Georgia Blazer team as Kentavious Caldwell-Pope ..... committed to Ohio State University last year. Could this bring some more heat to Ohio State ... this time to their basketball team??????? He had to receive some benefits as well ...you think??

Last year AJ Green sold a jersey for $1000 and had to sit 4 games. I dont see a worse penality coming for either of these players, especially considering the OLB got the "benefit" while at USC and the basketball player only recieved <$300. 1/3rd the season for him to sit out, max.